About “Yonkers”

In this interview Tyler explains that this song is meant to be a “conversation” between himself and his white, evil, swagged-out alter ego Wolf Haley.

Also, every line contradicts itself (just something to think about).

Trivia: At the end of Goblin Dr. TC says “So you told me you went to New York..” and then Yonkers starts. Yonkers is a city in NY. Rapper Lil Zane was born in Yonkers, NY and was also a re-occurrence in Tyler’s tweets, with Tyler frequently acting like or shouting him out. Lil Zane ended up dissing Tyler in a freestyle.

The masterful music video was self-directed (did you think it was Hype Williams?)

Here Tyler explains why he called the song “Yonkers”.

What have the artists said about the song?

Niggas don’t understand that that beat was made as a joke! I was tryna make a shitty New York Beat, and we was just rapping like we was from New York! Like we were retarded, and then I had some random verses and I was like I’ll actually record it to this beat. Like this beat is kind of cool, and then niggas really liked it and that’s so nuts ,because that shit was a fucking joke that song like I made that beat in 8 minutes.

Why is this song so popular?

This song pretty much blew up after Kanye West tweeted the video in February 2011, calling it the video of the year. Tyler even acknowledged this himself on Goblin.

This combined with the graphical, provocative nature of the video (Tyler eating a cockroach irl)
and Tyler & Hodgy Beats' now classic TV debut appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon around the same time, led to Odd Future’s shocking assault on hip-hop and the American public.

Yonkers became everyone’s introduction to Odd Future, for better or for worse, with the song and its video becoming so popular, that Tyler would later admit that he hated performing it during live shows, even going to the point of mocking it by changing lyrics and letting fans sing entire verses for him.